Sunday 11 February 2024

Very windy weather and rough seas prevented the boats from fishing on Day One of TOMT so there is not much to report about today’s activities. Dinner, was, of course, served at the club and this evening it was yellowtail and Cape salmon braaied to perfection.

After enjoying a lovely evening together most of the anglers opted for an early night as it would be a fishing day on the morrow!

Monday 24 February 2024

The competition was called on and lines in was at 06h00. At that time the south easterly wind was around 12 to 15 knots. The sea was choppy but flattening. 

The first sighting of a marlin was from Multi. The fish almost jumped onto the boat! That must have been both scary and exciting! What a great start to the day.

To add interest to the competition there is a Calcutta taking place. The boats can opt to join in by paying an entrance fee. Each angler may weigh one fish per day and a winner will be announced each evening. The overall winner at the end of the competition wins the pot.

At 14:17 a call came in from Maverick, a new boat in this tournament.  Jaen van den Berg was vas with a striped marlin. He fought it till 15:01 before safely releasing it. It was Jean’s first marlin. Veels Geluk Jaen!

Jaen will write an account of Maverick’s effort to land their marlin and it will be posted on this blog shortly. All photos will be posted then.

Once again wonderful food was served for dinner at Suidpunt Diepsee Hengelklub this evening. On the menu was a delicious Osso Buco and the anglers, after a tough day at sea, ate heartily.

Here is a slide show of some of the participating boats as they came in this afternoon. I missed getting photographs of those who returned before lines-up but I will post them in a future blog.

Andrew from Marlin Control presented the prizes to today’s winners of the Calcutta and also metered out ‘straf dops’ and snuff to those who committed misdemeanors!

Maverick had already caught and released a marlin and then hooked another very big fish which they thought might be a second marlin but it was an enormous dorado!